The Occupation of DC Has Become Ordinary

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Every day in D.C, caravans of federal agents move through the city. They accompany local police, surround cars, and participate in arrests. The people I see detained in these operations are primarily Black men. The agencies and uniforms vary. The structure remains the same: federal power enters an ordinary police encounter, and residents have no clear way to know who is in charge or what rules apply. This is what the past year of federal occupation has produced in Washington. It is not only soldiers near monuments or immigration agents carrying out highly visible raids. It is federal power embedded in everyday policing.

Tanya Golash-Boza is the Executive Director of the University of California Washington Center and the author of Before Gentrification: The Creation of DC’s Racial Wealth Gap (UC Press 2023)